Builders ask us this a lot, and they usually ask it in one of two ways.
The first is early and calm. Slab’s booked, frame’s ordered, when should we get cameras sorted? The second comes a bit later, often on a Monday, and sounds more like this: someone’s been through the site and taken half the copper. Can you get something out there this week?
Both are fair questions. Only one of them is cheap.
There’s no single right day to put CCTV on a new construction site. It depends on what’s on the block, who can see it from the street, and how long it’ll sit empty. But there are clear points in most builds where the risk jumps. If you know where they are, you can get cameras in a little before trouble turns up instead of a little after.
Why most people wait too long
It’s rarely carelessness. In the early weeks of a job, a site doesn’t look like much. A bare block, some survey pegs, maybe a site shed and a portaloo. Spending money to watch dirt feels silly.
So the camera goes on the “later” list. Later turns into frame stage, then lock-up, and then a long weekend comes along and somebody finds out the hard way that the site got interesting weeks ago.
There’s a second reason too. On a lot of jobs, the cost of hire shows up as a line item, while the cost of a break-in is a “might”. Nobody budgets for a might. That’s understandable right up until it turns into a stolen hot water unit, a smashed window and two trades who can’t start on Tuesday.
The trouble with waiting for the first incident is that the first one tells people your site is worth visiting. Thieves who found it easy once will often come back. So a camera that goes in after the damage is mostly guarding against round two.
Follow the build, not the calendar
The most useful way to think about timing is to watch what’s on site and how easy it is to reach. Risk tends to climb in steps, and each step lines up with a stage most builders already know well.
Demolition and site prep
On a knockdown rebuild, the risk can start before you’ve built anything. An empty old house is an open invitation for squatters, scrappers after copper and kids who want to smash things. Excavators and bobcats parked overnight are worth keeping an eye on too.
On a vacant greenfield block, this stage is usually lower risk. Plant hire is the exception. If there’s expensive gear sitting on site overnight, it’s worth covering.
Slab stage
There’s not a lot to carry off once the concrete’s down. But in the lead-up there’s reo, formwork, plumbing rough-in and sometimes plant, and a slab pour is the kind of thing you don’t want messed with the night before.
For many single-home builds, slab stage is when builders start thinking about cameras rather than actually putting them in. That’s fine, as long as the thinking turns into a booking.
Frame stage
This is where things change. Timber packs, nail guns, compressors and roof trusses arrive, and the site starts looking like a building. It also starts looking like a playground. Kids love a frame. So do people who fancy a free stack of pine.
Frame stage is also when sight lines start to close up. A camera that could see the whole block from the corner at slab stage might be staring at studs a fortnight later. If cameras are already on, plan to move them. If they’re not, this is a sensible time to get them in.
Lock-up through to fit-off
For most residential jobs, this is the riskiest stretch, and it’s usually the one we’d suggest covering if you only cover one.
Windows and doors go in. Then the good stuff arrives: kitchen joinery, appliances, ducted heating, tapware, hot water units, cable runs, copper. A lot of it gets delivered in boxes and stored inside a house that is “locked up” in name only. One forced door and the whole lot is gone.
Between completion and handover
This one catches people out. The house is finished, the trades have moved on, and it sits there for a week or three waiting on final inspections and settlement. It’s full of new fixtures and nobody’s around. If your cameras came off the day the painters left, you’ve skipped a risky gap.
The weeks when nobody’s home
Stage isn’t the only trigger. Time matters too, especially empty time.
A site that’s busy six days a week has a lot of eyes on it. A site that goes quiet for a while is a different story. Have a think about where your program has gaps:
- The Christmas shutdown, when plenty of sites sit untouched for two weeks or longer
- Long weekends like Easter, the King’s Birthday and Cup Day
- Wet stretches in winter when work stops for days at a time
- Hold-ups waiting on inspections, permits or a trade who’s running late elsewhere
If a gap like that lines up with lock-up or fit-off, you’ve got a site full of valuable gear with no one near it for days. That’s often the clearest sign it’s time.
Melbourne doesn’t make it simpler
Where you’re building changes the answer, sometimes by quite a lot.
New estates on the city’s edge. Out around Tarneit, Wollert, Donnybrook or Clyde North, plenty of blocks have no power for months. Streets can be unlit and half the lots empty. That combination makes sites easy targets earlier in the build, because nobody’s around to notice a ute pulling up at midnight. It also means cameras need to run on solar and battery, and those systems need sizing for a grey week in July, not a sunny one in March. It’s worth booking a bit earlier so there’s time to check the sun and the mobile signal before anything goes in.
Inner-city jobs. A site squeezed between terraces in Fitzroy or wedged against a laneway in Richmond is exposed from day one. Foot traffic walks right past the hoarding. People notice what’s stored behind it. Neighbours notice everything. On these jobs the risk isn’t just theft. It’s also damage claims, complaints and the occasional passer-by who reckons they tripped over your fence. Footage helps with all of it, so earlier usually makes sense.
Established suburbs. Builds next to schools and shopping strips have plenty of passing eyes during the day and almost none at night. Curious kids are a bigger issue here than organised theft.
The weather. Melbourne’s cool changes don’t care what stage you’re at. A northerly followed by a midnight southerly can flatten a run of temporary fencing on a bare block just as easily as on a finished house. If your site borders a footpath or a school route, being able to check it at 6am after a wild night is useful no matter what stage you’re at.
Residential and commercial are different animals
On a single home or a small townhouse job, it’s reasonable to target cameras at the risky stretch, usually frame or lock-up through to handover. Margins are tight and the early stages don’t always justify the spend. One well-placed unit covering the gate, the drop zone and the garage often does the job.
Commercial projects tend to need cameras sooner. There’s usually a site compound, plant and a container full of tools from the first week. Deliveries start early, and so do disputes about when things arrived and who damaged what. On a commercial job, CCTV is often as much about site records and coordination as it is about security, and that value starts on day one.
Small developments sit somewhere in between. Three or four townhouses at different stages can mean one unit has appliances inside while the one next door is still a slab. Coverage needs to follow the riskiest part of the site, which moves as the job goes along.
A made-up example
This is a hypothetical scenario to show how timing can play out. It isn’t a real customer story.
Say a builder called Marco is doing a double-storey in a new estate out past Mickleham. He plans to put cameras on at lock-up, which is a reasonable plan on paper.
But the frame goes up in early December. Then the roofers get pushed back, and the windows arrive the week before Christmas and get stacked in the garage. Suddenly the site is half-closed, full of glass and about to sit empty for nearly three weeks. The street still has no lights and no neighbours.
If Marco had looked at his program instead of the stage name, he’d have seen that clash coming in November. Bringing the cameras forward by a month would have covered the riskiest part of his whole build. Waiting for “lock-up” would have missed it.
A sensible way to make the call
Skip the rule of thumb for a minute and look at your actual job. A few honest questions usually point the way:
- When does valuable stuff start sitting on site overnight? Plant, tools, materials, appliances. That’s usually your start date.
- When will the site be empty for more than a day or two? Shutdowns, long weekends, rain delays.
- How exposed is it? A dark estate street and a busy inner-city laneway carry different risks, but both count.
- Is there power, and is there signal? If not, give yourself extra lead time.
- What happens after completion? Make sure cameras stay on until the keys change hands.
If two or three of those land in the same few weeks, that’s your window. And if you can’t quite tell, it’s usually safer to go a week early than a week late.
At Site CCTV, we often have this conversation well before a camera goes anywhere near a site. Sometimes the answer is “not yet, give us a call when the frame’s up.” Sometimes it’s “get something on before the demo crew leaves.” Either way, it helps to talk about it while you’re still choosing the timing, before the timing gets chosen for you.
Whatever you decide, decide it on purpose. A camera that goes in because you planned for it nearly always does more good than one that goes in because something already went wrong.